I've released my documentary film on the history of the right to arms, "In Search of the Second Amendment." It stars twelve professors of constitutional law, plus Steve Halbrook, David Kopel, Don Kates, and Clayton Cramer. You can order the DVD here. And here's the Wikipedia page on it. SUPREME COURT SPECIAL: additional orders only $10 each.

Update: I think the units are counted two ways. It looks to me like the order is for lots of 100,000, but the price is requested as per 1,000. This is of course just one order. I doubt DHS is up to anything nefarious, to me this is more an indication of how enormous the Federal law enforcement establishment has become, that it thinks in terms of tens of millions of rounds just to keep in practice for a while. If you look back to, oh, the late 1960s, the Federal LE establishment was quite tiny. In Federal courts, tax evasion cases made up the majority of prosecutions. When I started in practice, Tucson had I think two Federal judges and one magistrate, and with this being on the border, it probably had much more Federal activity than would most courts.

The destination is listed as "Arteia" New Mexico. I think that's probably supposed to be Artesia, NM - the location of the DHS Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. Practice makes perfect and all that...

I think this is a very ominous sign. This is what amounts to a Federal Police Agency purchasing huge amounts ammo. Let's not forget about the 7.62 and 5.56 NATO rifle request bids last year. These guys are preparing for war against the civilian population. There is nothing else you can say about it.

How many DHS employees carry service handguns or rifles? And how many rounds per employee is that?

Isn't this document a solicitation of bids? It's not a purchase order, it just locks the winner of the bid into a price for that amount of rounds.
That's what I'm seeing anyway.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not sure these numbers are anything to get worked up about. A quick search indicates 230K DHS employees. If we assume, for the sake of argument, that 1/4 of the employees carry pistols, that's only 365 rounds per weapon - enough for a couple day's practice. If we assume 10%, that's still only 913/pistol.

That's not to say there aren't any OTHER worrisome signs, just that this one doesn't look like one.

The unit of measure is MX, which is 1000; i.e. 100,000 rds of .40 hollowpoint, 100,000 rounds of 9mm hollowpoint, and 40,000 rounds of 9mm training ammo. 240,000 rds total.

For another, this is a small business set aside, for small ammo makers, not ATK.

This does not look like an attempt to corner the market in ammo or go to war with anyone. I don't know how FLETC works, but if they did six classes a year with 20 students in a class, and each fired 1000 rounds per class, that would be 120,000 rounds right there.

I need an education. Does the federal government actually use Roman Numerals for contract units? If they do, then M is 1000, MX is 1010, and M with a bar over it is 1,000,000. That makes the contract for 242,400 rounds. Truly, and odd number. But, I get back to.... Really, they use roman numerals?!!

If it is a contract for, roughly, 240,000 rounds. That is only "maybe" 20 times what a prudent individual would have on hand for personal use. Two trips to the range per month, say 25 trips to the range per year. That would be about 200 rounds per trip for an annual consumption of 5,000 rounds per year for an individual to stay reasonably competent.